Category: Heritage Tourism

The following is reposted from the Civil War Bloggers, Authors, etc.Facebook Site. The editorial is via Gary Biggs of the Nashville CWRT and based on an article by reporter Betsy Phillips about the proposed atrocity that rapacious and greedy developers want to foist on the city. They have in recent months also bulldozed a frontier cemetery in the area that was supposed to be under government protection. It is published here to make other Civil War enthusiasts and historians aware of the dire threat to the few remaining acres of Civil War Nashville. Even most Nashville citizens are unaware of the important role the city played during the Civil War. Greedy developers are working hard to erase even this last vestige. Please contact the Mayor’s office in Nashville if you are at all concerned about the situation. The city listens to visitors and tourists more than they do t concerned citizens. Thank you. CKC

CIVIL WAR NEWS AND EVENTS
Fort Negley Park Area Under Development Threat
On April 28th, 2017, reporter Betsy Phillips wrote the following article in the weekly …Nashville Scene paper:Developers Propose the Desecration of Fort Negley
Shame on us if we let it happen
“WKRN has a story about a proposed development around Fort Negley:
On Tuesday, we heard from a developer who has big plans for the empty property (Greer Stadium site): a multi-purpose complex called Nashville Adventure Park.”
“The proposal includes senior living, luxury apartments, townhomes, affordable housing, a farmer’s market at the stadium, artisan retail and studios, restaurants, a hotel, and a wide variety of sports offerings.”
“If you imagine the hill that the main part of the fort sits on as an egg yolk, this development would be like the egg white, seeming to completely surround the fort, except for where the Adventure Science Center sits.”
“In other words, the old Catholic Cemetery and the large City Cemetery annexes that the Union opened during the Civil War would all be gone. And, fine, they’re supposed to be empty anyway, but if I were a developer, I’d put a line in my budget for dead parts removal.”
“More disturbingly and more tragically, this development sits on the site of the contraband camp, the home of thousands of black refugees during the Civil War. As Zada Law pointed out two years ago, there’s been virtually no archaeology done at any contraband camp in Tennessee.”
“We’ve already irretrievably lost whatever was under the Adventure Science Center, but a lot remains relatively undisturbed. Even the parts under the parking lot are just under a parking lot. We have not yet screwed up a crucial bit of Nashville’s African American history, even if we haven’t bothered to explore it like we should. But if we let developers have it, then that history will be lost. Sure, some archaeologists could come in and do history triage to try to learn as much as they could before it’s torn up, but the Civil War isn’t that far down in the ground. We will lose it.”
“And frankly, how much more of our Civil War history do we have to lose? We already put I-440 on top of the Confederate line and built a city on the battlefield. One of the most important battles of the Civil War and we let Franklin and Murfreesboro be the tourist destinations while we metaphorically kick the rug over what’s left of our Civil War sites.”
“Shame on us if we let this development happen. Shame on us if we knowingly let this history slip away.”

Fort Negley as restored in the 1930’s. It was allowed to go back to seed and only in the last few years have serious preservation efforts begun to be done by the City.

Here is what the proposed development looks like:
Somewhere in the middle of this monstrosity lies Fort Negley and the visitors center. Note that the parking for the latter has not been expanded. It has been proven time and again that history tourism brings in far more money than any other – people have more to spend, stay longer, etc. if you give them something to see and promote it so they know about it. The traffic count for the area will explode making it even more difficult to get to the fort to visit. Don’t believe me? Look at what has happened at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA with the massive growth of Virginia Commonwealth University around it; their attendance has fallen off to the point that they are moving to new quarters down on the James River.

Traffic comes with big cities. But traffic also drives people away from doing things just so they do not have to deal with it. People spend enough time in traffic just going to and from work five days a week; they do not want to deal with it on weekends when they want to do something fun.
Ms. Phillips’ article also brings out the tremendous loss of historic ground upon which sits the fort and its surrounding area, which was all part of the fort’s footprint. Shall Nashville follow the same mistaken path that Atlanta did many years ago by paving over its history from the Civil War? How does this travesty being proposed in Nashville compare to what is happening just a few miles down the road in Franklin where they lead the nation in reclaiming lost Civil War land and restoring it to how it looked over 150 years ago? It is a pathetic failure on Nashville’s part.
Like so many other cities, Nashville has lots of places that are basically blight that can be redeveloped into something like in the above drawing; places that are not historic Civil War lands. How about moving this thing there instead and leave Fort Negley be?

During the Battle of Nashville, General Thomas broke the back of the Confederate Army of Tennessee–the South’s last best hope– sealing the fate of the Confederacy.

By Greg Biggs (The above is the opinion of Greg Biggs, a member of the Nashville CWRT and not necessarily the opinion of the Nashville CWRT as a whole or the staff of Fort Negley Park, a unit of Nashville Metro City parks.)

Famed journalist and author Ambrose Bierce was in an out of Nashville during the Civil War and participated in the Battle of Nashville in 1865.